Discuss Inviting the Prophets Back to Church

Can you imagine what would happen today if one of the Old Testament prophets came to one of our churches as the preacher, or even as a visitor? They seem to have a tendency to do things that make people more than a little uncomfortable. How would we react, for example, if Jeremiah showed up for morning worship wearing an ox yoke on his neck (Jer. 27:2)? Or if we found Ezekiel in the parking lot doing strange things with the hair he had just shaved off of his head (Ezek.l 5:1-4)? And it's not only their behavior that is odd.

How right you are! The messages of the prophets are desperately needed in the church today. The political agenda & popular theology of modern (so called evangelical) Christians are pretty much identical with the practices and attitudes the prophets condemn.

When we do quote the prophets, we choose a few pet verses, taken out of context, and believe the call is for repentance from sin in a generic way, and we want to be the ones who define "sin" and decide who, in our culture, needs to repent. We don't have that luxury. The prophets CLEARLY state the sins God hates. They clearly specify who needs to repent.

We love to say, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land." We somehow miss WHO is called to repentance and start listing the specific groups & national leaders that, in our opinion, are wicked. They are all people we do not consider "God's people." Isn't that odd?

When we ask God to "heal our land," even though we believe we have nothing to repent of, do we have a clue what "heal our land" even means? We have 2 or 3 issues we believe our land needs to be healed of & they happen to be the same things we want the "wicked" to repent of. Are the healing & the repentance the same thing?

In the original context, the actual land was needing to healed to bear good crops to nourish the people. Does our soil & climate need healing? Even if the wounds that need healing are great evils that grieve us, God does not promise the healing if the unbeliever repents. He will heal those issues when the church repents. When we truly hear the prophets' messages & repent, God can heal the hearts of those we call "evil." Only then will they change their ways.